Ex-Republican Mayor in Connecticut Is Sentenced to 37 Years for Sex Abuse  June 14, 2003 BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) Former Republican Waterbury Mayor Philip Giordano, convicted of sexually abusing two preteen girls inside City Hall and other locations, was sentenced Friday to 37 years in federal prison. Giordano was convicted in March of violating the civil rights of the two girls by forcing them to have oral sex with him in City Hall, his law office, home and elsewhere. The girls were ages 8 and 10 at the time. He also was convicted of conspiring with a prostitute who is the mother of one girl and aunt of the other, and with using an interstate device, a cell phone, to arrange the liaisons. ``Your conduct is the worst I have ever seen. I've seen drug dealers, murderers. What you did is indescribable,'' U.S. District Judge Alan Nevas told the former Republican mayor in announcing the sentence. ``You, sir, are a sexual predator.'' Giordano did not speak during the sentencing hearing. He could have faced a life sentence under federal guidelines, but the judge chose a lesser sentence based on Giordano's cooperation in a federal investigation of political corruption in Waterbury. Giordano still faces state charges on the same allegations. nytimes.com

Road Map to What? June 14, 2003 By DAVID VEST Bush W. is now presiding over the largest budget deficit in U. S. history. At $291 billion and counting, on the way to $400 billion and beyond, he has already bettered his hapless dad's record of dischievement by more than a billion dollars. Dad left office clinically depressed, by all accounts. Does this mean Junior can look forward to years of shock treatments and a Prozac diet? According to reports, his domestic approval ratings have dropped by 15 points in the past two months. Abroad, forget about it. Numbers don't go that low. Judging by the televised expression on his face, Bush W. would have to show a lot of improvement before we could call him depressed. counterpunch.org

Reflect carefully on Ashcroft's power June 14, 2003 Attorney General John Ashcroft's disturbing testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last week shows why Congress must be cautious in expanding the Patriot Act. Ashcroft revealed bureaucratic arrogance and an apparent willingness to turn a bedrock principle of American justice on its head. Congress must be sure any new provisions to the Patriot Act are essential to the war on terrorism. It also must recognize that the law will be enforced by a Justice Department whose leader seems unwilling to understand widespread concern about threats to civil liberties. kansascity.com

Leading Democrat slams Republican move to close hearings on US' Iraq intelligence June 14, 2003 (AFP)  A top congressional Democrat on Thursday slammed as "totally inadequate" a decision by Republican lawmakers to hold closed door hearings on the quality and accuracy of intelligence reports used to justify the US-led invasion of Iraq. Republican leaders in Congress refused Wednesday to establish a special commission to investigate allegations that intelligence reports about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been manipulated to justify the war. prolog.net

Defining judicial deviancy down June 14, 2003 By Michelle Goldberg Bush's nomination of right-wing caricature William Pryor to the 11th Circuit takes his court-packing efforts to new depths. The nomination of William Pryor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit should teach liberals once and for all never to underestimate George W. Bush's chutzpah. Just when it seemed the president couldn't possibly find any potential judges more right-wing than those he's already appointed, he outdid himself. "It's an extraordinary public record," Ralph Neas, president of the civil liberties watchdog group People for the American Way, says of Pryor. "Rarely do you see someone so bad on so many issues at a relatively young age." Pryor, the 40-year-old attorney general of Alabama, holds far-right positions on women's rights, abortion, gay rights, the environment, criminal justice and the separation of church and state. Speaking at Pryor's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said, "In a way, his views are an unfortunate stitching together of the worst parts of the most troubling judges we've seen thus far." salon.com

Conflating protests with terrorism June 14, 2003 Bill Berkowitz Under the guise of President Bush's all-consuming, yet amorphous, war against terrorism, police agencies across the country are spying and compiling dossiers on citizens exercising their constitutional rights. The Bush administration -- all war against terrorism, all the time -- has consistently supported policies and legislation allowing for the collection and cataloguing of data on the political, religious, or social views of individuals and organizations regardless of whether they present any imminent threat to the nation's safety. The administration has also spent obscene amounts of money to spy on its citizens while money for education and social services is drying up. workingforchange.com

COMEX gold turns higher on worsening sentiment data June 14, 2003 Reuters COMEX gold trimmed earlier losses, moving upward Friday after a consumer sentiment indicator worsened unexpectedly in June, souring early gains in both U.S. stocks and the dollar, and inspiring gold traders to eye upside targets, they said.forbes.com

Musical Quests in the Land of Excess June 14, 2003 Joshua Geisler reports: From Our Offices In Nepal, Where the Monkey Runs Free  I've been here in India for 3 mo. now and have one more to go. the first month was mostly spent in the Himalayan highlands, and then I came down to Bombay to study Hindustani classical music. I can tell you about India in general. I call it the land of extremes. the rich are RICH by international standards, while the poor live in ramshackle huts made of bamboo and plastic tarps (the better off ones have tin roofs) next to roads and railroad tracks, are illiterate, and drink the water from muddy puddles. The women are pregnant by 13 because they make more money begging with small children. Many have aids or leprosy or clubbed feet or missing limbs. Certain beaches are the most beautiful in the world with sparkling oceans lined by palm trees and virgin sands, while the cities are FUCKING DISGUSTING, smelling of a combination of urine, exhaust fumes, and burning garbage. Overpopulation is an understatement. The spices are SPICY and the sweets are SWEET. the summers are HOT, and the monsoon season means months of torrential rain. Everyone is corrupt, and will lie, cheat, steal, and kill to get what they want, yet this is also the land that has produced some of the worlds greatest saints. rhesusmonkey.com

What is American Interventionism really about? June 13, 2003 by Brian McAfee The war is, for the most part, over. Iraq has been liberated, the country is in a shambles but Halliburton is on hand to rebuild. Most of the troops are back home or on their way. With apparently overwhelming public support, why were those Pesky demonstrators out there? All across the U.S., in Europe, in India, pretty much everywhere. After all, isn't Saddam Hussen the most evil man on earth, a blight on the planet? Well, yes he is, as are Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, Manuel Noriega. All bad bad men, with one thing in common- 20 years ago we (the U.S.) armed, trained and financed them. thepeoplesvoice.org

Our self-professed family values president has a strange set of family values – selective memory, hypocrisy, lying, and scapegoating June 13, 2003 By William Marvel More than anything else, the growing scandal over Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction highlights the profound hypocrisy that seems to be required of the Republican faithful these days. In order to continue supporting George Bush and his Wolfowitz pack of co-conspirators, Republican Party animals must ignore the furor they raised, only five years ago, over a president who (like many Republican and Democratic presidents before him) had engaged in an extramarital affair. Those who impeached Bill Clinton for disguising a private transgression now expect the rest of us to forgive George Bush for lying to the entire world about matters of grave national and international importance. interventionmag.com

Pinter blasts 'Nazi America' and 'deluded idiot' Blair June 12, 2003 Angelique Chrisafis and Imogen Tilden  The playwright Harold Pinter last night likened George W Bush's administration to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, saying the US was charging towards world domination while the American public and Britain's "mass-murdering" prime minister sat back and watched. Pinter said the US government was the most dangerous power that had ever existed. The American detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where al-Qaida and Taliban suspects were being held, was a concentration camp. The US population had to accept responsibility for allowing an unelected president to take power and the British were exhausted from protesting and being ignored by Tony Blair, a "deluded idiot" Pinter hoped would resign. guardian.co.uk

GOP Doesn't Want Iraq Intelligence Probe June 12, 2003 By KEN GUGGENHEIM Senate Republicans are resisting Democrats' calls for a full-blown investigation of whether intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs was inaccurate or manipulated to make the case for war. Leading Republicans say there is no evidence of wrongdoing and no need yet for an inquiry that goes much beyond routine oversight. Democrats want a more thorough investigation in light of doubts raised about some of the intelligence and the failure so far to find weapons of mass destruction. guardian.co.uk

Canada's cheaper drugs anger U.S. drug giants June 12, 2003 By Chris Cobb OTTAWA America's big drug companies are intensifying their lobbying efforts to "change the Canadian health-care system" and eliminate subsidized prescription drug prices enjoyed by Canadians. A prescription drug industry spokesman in Washington confirmed to CanWest News Service that information contained in confidential industry documents is accurate and that $1 million US is being added to the already heavily funded drug lobby against the Canadian system. canada.com

Illusory America June 12, 2003 by mrhain The State is a master illusionist.  It is not through military or monetary might that the masses are controlled; in America it is through the power of illusion.  Understanding that our thoughts, opinions, and actions are based upon how we perceive the world around us, the State has sought to influence and alter these perceptions, and has created through trickery and deceit an “alternate reality” of sorts for us to dwell in.  Indeed, the proverbial “American Dream” has been replaced with an American dream world. Suppose I told you that a society should measure its freedom based upon the number of people it imprisoned – the more people in jail, the more free the society.  If you’re a citizen of the real world, you probably find such a notion ludicrous.  Most Americans, however, do not live in the real world; they live in an illusory, conceptual America that exists only in their own minds.  Citizens of Illusory America frequently berate me for failing to appreciate the “fact” that “we live in the freest country in the world!”   In the real world, however, the United States has a higher percentage of its population in jails and prisons than any other country on the planet, technically making it the most imprisoned country in the world. strike-the-root.com

Major 911 Oddities Revealed In NY Firehouse Documentary June 12, 2003 From Top View On March 11, 6 months after the September 11 destruction of the World Trade Center, CBS aired a film consisting largely of documentary footage on the firefighters of the FDNY's Engine 7, Ladder 1. Engine 7's firehouse is just several blocks from the WTC. The footage was taken by a team of two French brothers, Jules and Gedeon Naudet, who'd begun their documentary on the life and times of these particular firemen some days before. The firefighters of Engine 7 -- all of whom ended up at ground zero on September 11 -- by incredible grace, and maybe luck, all survived and lived to see another day... And many of their days since September 11 have been spent searching for the bodies of their lost comrades and the many, many other victims at ground zero. indymedia.org

Saddam on the Loose: The Bush Cartel Propaganda is So Cheesy, Transparent, and Opportunistic, any Legitimate Press Would Laugh It off in a Minute June 12, 2003 BuzzFlash has reported on the most amateurish Bush propaganda creations during the last year. There were so many, we could just touch upon a few. One of our favorites, leaked by the Pentagon to help justify the Iraq attack, was that Saddam had loaded his Weapons of Mass Destruction on three ships that were circling the globe. The "unnamed" Bush Cartel source, when asked why the U.S. didn't try to stop the ships, said that we didn't attack the vessels because we didn't want to unleash the WMDs. BuzzFlash was laughing out loud at that one. A few days after the "leak," it was revealed that the ships in question were actually registered to a legitimate shipping company and their cargo was fully accounted for. Another one of our favorite "sucker" scare stories was mentioned in a BuzzFlash editorial the other day. The Bush Cartel claimed that Osama bin Laden had sent out terrorists to disguise themselves as beggars. We figured that ludicrous fib was a Bush Cartel twofer. It made Al-Qaeda appear completely merciless and unprincipled -- and it allowed the Bush Cartel to give beggars a bad name. That way the Bush Cartel could justify rounding up homeless people, if push came to shove. And since homeless people are poor because God believes them unworthy of being wealthy, they are about as bad as terrorists, right? buzzflash.com

It's Hitting the Fan June 11, 2003 by Michael Shannon  We still have a long way to go, but this could turn out to be the dream come true scenario. In spite of all the missteps, all the mangled elocution, all the self-serving policies and all the arrogance it has long appeared as though it would take an elongated economic slowdown or God forbid, another catastrophic attack on America to bring the true face of the Bush administration into view. Developments that absolutely no rational person would want. But as fate would have it, it now seems as though due to its key player's unbridled, avaricious mendacity this administration may self-destruct, with no one to blame but themselves. The next several weeks will be critical in the history of this Bush presidency. The chorus of voices calling for an explanation as to whether, from the President on down, the administration lied to the United Nations Security Council, Congress, and most importantly the American people in regards to the war in Iraq, is on the cusp of reaching critical mass. americaheldhostile.com

Documentary about president Bush's secret society- the Brotherhood of death  June 11, 2003  (AKA Skull and Bones) RealVideo: stream with RealPlayer http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/skullandbones56k.ram / download RM file (6.9 mebibytes) http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/skullandbones56k.rm Inside a cold, foreboding structure of brown sandstone in New Haven, Conn., lives one of the most heavily shrouded secret societies in American history. Yale's super-elite Skull and Bones, a 200-year-old organization whose roster is stocked with some of the country's most prominent families: Bush, Harriman, Phelps, Rockefeller, Taft, and Whitney. THE LEGEND OF SKULL AND BONES Sometime in the early 1830s, a Yale student named William H. Russell, the future valedictorian of the class of 1833- traveled to Germany to study for a year. Russell came from an inordinately wealthy family that ran one of America's most despicable business organizations of the nineteenth century: Russell and Company, an opium empire. Russell would later become a member of the Connecticut state legislature, a general in the Connecticut National Guard, and the founder of the Collegiate and Commercial Institute in New Haven. While in Germany, Russell befriended the leader of an insidious German secret society that hailed the death's head as its logo. Russell soon became caught up in this group, itself a sinister outgrowth of the notorious eighteenth-century society the Illuminati. indymedia.org

"We The People" must remove the current administration of The United States of America June 11, 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom is illegal within the framework of the laws of the United States Constitution and the United Nations Charter. 1. The war on Iraq has been planned for many years by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC),an organization founded by a small group of right wing political visionaries and corporate elite dedicated to promoting American global leadership. The PNAC signatories hold the most powerful positions in the current administration and other highly influential political offices. Read their Statement of Principles and note the signatories. Read the PNAC's “Rebuilding America's Defenses” for a detail of their strategy for American hegemony. 2. Many members of the Bush Administration are convicted criminals. In 1992, the International War Crimes Tribunal found the senior officers in the first Bush administration guilty on 19 counts of Crimes Against Peace, War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and other criminal acts in Violation of the Charter of the United Nations, International Law, The Constitution of the United States and Laws made in Pursuance thereof, for crimes committed during “Operation Desert Storm”. View a list of our `elected' officials, their appointees, and their criminal offenses. http://www.thefourreasons.org/

CBO Expects Deficit to Shatter Record June 11, 2003 By ALAN FRAM The Congressional Budget Office now expects this year's federal deficit to exceed $400 billion, shattering the previous record even as President Bush and lawmakers consider creating expensive new prescription drug benefits for Medicare recipients. Only a month ago, the budget office--which is Congress' top nonpartisan fiscal analyst--said for the first time that it believed this year's shortfall would exceed $300 billion. But that projection excluded this year's price tag of the tax reductions enacted three weeks ago, which totaled $330 billion through 2013.``CBO now projects that the federal government is likely to end fiscal year 2003 with a deficit of more than $400 billion,'' the office said in its monthly analysis of data from the Treasury Department. daytondailynews.com

Ashcroft's Attitude Problem June 11, 2003 Richard Cohen writes Tuesday in the Washington Post of Ashcroft's Attitude Problem . Cohen argues that Ashcroft is more dangerous than those he detains. My job is to connect the dots. So follow me as I take you from a typical newspaper story about yet another convicted murderer being freed after DNA testing to the testimony last week of Attorney General John Ashcroft. The first is clear evidence of the imperfectability of the criminal justice system, and the second is the smug refusal to admit it. Ashcroft has a serious attitude problem. talkleft.com

Toll grows as attacks on troops get smarter June 11 2003 By William Booth and Daniel Williams in Tikrit, Iraq Almost every day, well-organised groups of assailants armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars are ambushing United States Army convoys, patrols, checkpoints, garrisons and public offices. The US forces respond with house-to-house searches, arms seizures and force, sometimes killing bystanders. smh.com.au

Many Americans Unaware WMD Have Not Been Found June 11, 2003 41% said they believed that the US has found such weapons. June 11, 2003 (PIPA) A striking finding in the new Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)   Knowledge Networks poll is that many Americans are unaware that weapons of mass destruction have not been found in Iraq. While 59% of those polled correctly said the US has not found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, 41% said they believed that the US has found such weapons (34%) or were unsure (7%). Steven Kull, director of PIPA, comments: "For some Americans, their desire to support the war may be leading them to screen out information that weapons of mass destruction have not been found. Given the intensive news coverage and high levels of public attention to the topic, this level of misinformation suggests that some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance." informationclearinghouse.info

Neocon Convergences June 11, 2003 By Salim Muwakkil A funny thing happened while following the money trail of the neoconservatives who have hijacked U.S. foreign policy. The path led to a network of financial and intellectual resources that also is dedicated to neoracism. The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation has been the economic fount for the neoconservative notions of global affairs now ascendant in the Bush administration. The Bradley Foundation is the right’s economic fount for ideas promoting neoracist empire. According to a report by Media Transparency, from 1995 to 2001 the Milwaukee-based foundation provided about $14.5 million to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the think tank most responsible for incubating and nourishing the ideas of the neocon movement. inthesetimes.com

Accountability missing in Bushland June 11, 2003 By RUPERT CORNWELL A strange feeling overtakes the British journalist in Washington these days, as he chronicles the rebirth of the imperial presidency under George W. Bush, and then turns for a second to CNN to watch Tony Blair defending himself at Prime Minister's Questions. Mere theatrics, I tell myself as I watch the heated exchanges. Entertaining to be sure, but only a charade that passes for open government, where questioning by the people's elected representatives elicits few facts and certainly changes no policies. seattlepi.nwsource.com

War crime vote fuels US anger at Europe June 11, 2003 Gary Younge The US has bitterly attacked European leaders for trying to stop the UN security council voting tomorrow to renew America's exemption from prosecution by the new war crimes tribunal. The Bush administration has accused the EU of "actively undermining" American efforts to protect its peacekeepers from prosecution by the international criminal court, which was set up to try cases of genocide, war crimes and systematic human rights abuses. A note written by a US official says Europe's objections "will undercut all our efforts to repair and rebuild the transatlantic relationship just as we are taking a turn for the better after a number of difficult months", according to the Washington Post. "We are dismayed that the European Union would actively seek to undermine US efforts." guardian.co.uk

Noor, six years old, lies partially burried beneath rubble after an American missile hit the Al Jumhuriya neighbourhood of Basra.

Kucinich: Show Us The; Evidence, Mr. President June 10, 2003 Kucinich Leads 30 Members of Congress In Introducing A Resolution of Inquiry To Force Administration To Turn Over Intelligence On Iraq’s Weapons Of Mass Destruction Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), today, led 30 Members of Congress in introducing a Resolution of Inquiry in the House of Representatives to force the Administration to turn over the intelligence to back its yet unproven claims that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. “It is long past time that the President and this Administration show its evidence,” stated Kucinich, the leader of the opposition to the war in Iraq in the House. “Today, we are introducing a Resolution of Inquiry to compel the White House to substantiate its claims. The President led the nation to war, and spent at least $63 billion on that war, on the basis of these unfounded assertions.” house.gov

The impeachable offense June 10, 2003 By Geov Parrish Bush jeopardized troops' lives on false pretext. Finally, and far too late, the networks, the big dailies, and the national news magazines are discovering that the Bush Administration's case for invading Iraq was a combination of willfully gross exaggerations and flat-out lies. For weeks, various recently leaked or released documents have confirmed that there was little or no evidence in American and British files that even plausibly pointed to an Iraqi threat of either nuclear or other banned weapons or an Iraqi link to Al-Qaeda. workingforchange.com

Captives Deny Qaeda Worked With Baghdad June 10, 2003 By JAMES RISEN Two of the highest-ranking leaders of Al Qaeda in American custody have told the C.I.A. in separate interrogations that the terrorist organization did not work jointly with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein, according to several intelligence officials. Abu Zubaydah, a Qaeda planner and recruiter until his capture in March 2002, told his questioners last year that the idea of working with Mr. Hussein's government had been discussed among Qaeda leaders, but that Osama bin Laden had rejected such proposals, according to an official who has read the Central Intelligence Agency's classified report on the interrogation. nytimes.com

Increasing U.S. pressure provokes fears that Iran might be next on Washington's target list June 10, 2003 TEHRAN, Iran, At Hussein Lari's 68th birthday, his relatives gather in the living room, exchange their warm hellos, then turn quickly to a heated political debate: Is Iran the next target for U.S. military action? U.S. officials  most recently Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday — insist there are no plans to attack Iran.But with Washington repeatedly lobbing accusations at Iran over nuclear weapons and al-Qaida, the denials have done little to quiet the dread and speculation that dominates talk among Iranians. ''The U.S. will not come out of love for you or Iran. They want nothing less than domination over strategically placed Iran and its rich resources.'' U.S. officials have been making accusations that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons and harboring al-Qaida terrorists — including leaders who may have planned suicide bombings that killed Americans in Saudi Arabia last month.  famulus.msnbc.com

Americans shouldn't believe a thing Bush says on Iran June 10, 2003 O. Ricardo Pimentel The Iraqi war was intended to teach a lot of folks, among them Iranians, a lesson. Arguably, here's what Iran, now in U.S. crosshairs for doing all those things we said Iraq was doing, might have learned. -If, after you are accused of developing weapons of mass destruction, you submit to international inspection, get ready to be invaded anyway. -If you say you don't have any such weapons, you are, of course, lying. If inspectors can't find any, you're hiding them. And if, after invasion, they still can't be found, you were just awfully good at both of the above. -If one of the charges is, specifically, that you're developing nuclear weapons, best you speed things along. You see, as Iraq demonstrated, countries that we say are oh-so-close to having nukes get invaded. On the other hand, we use diplomacy and stinging rebukes for countries such as North Korea. You know, countries that are apparently far along in nuke development, hint that they might actually have the little nasties and have the means to deliver them. theolympian.com

US forces feign outrage by Iraqi teen rape claim June 10, 2003 Baghdad An Iraqi newspaper run by Sunni Muslims traded charges on Monday with the United State  s-led occupation authority over the alleged rape of two Iraqi girls by US soldiers, a claim denied by the coalition. According to the daily As-Saah, the girls, aged 14 and 15, were talking to American soldiers in Suwaira, 180km south of Baghdad, on Friday when the soldiers suggested they accompany them to their camp to take pictures but then collectively raped the pair. As-Saah said one of the girls died after she was raped by 18 soldiers while the other was killed by her family. Editor Naama Abderrazzak told AFP two of the daily's reporters had talked to residents of the area and seen the bodies of the two girls. "After conducting a thorough investigation into this supposed account, we know this report is inaccurate, irresponsible, and purposefully attempts to damage the credibility of our forces and our efforts to create a secure and stable environment for the people of Iraq," Centcom said. But Abderrazzak insisted he had asked his staff to thoroughly check the story and it was definitely true. "Everyone in Suwairi is aware of this episode and it wouldn't take the Americans long to investigate it," he said. iol.co.za

Faced with growing resistance US prepares military repression in Iraq June 10, 2003 By Bill Vann Backing off from earlier promises to quickly scale back the US military force presently occupying Iraq, the Pentagon has announced that it will instead increase the number of troops deployed in the country and indefinitely postpone the scheduled departure of key combat units. The decision was taken in the face of mounting Iraqi guerrilla attacks on US forces that have claimed the lives of as many as a dozen American soldiers over the past week and left dozens more wounded. In response, the Pentagon is preparing a military campaign aimed at suppressing resistance to the US occupation. wsws.org

BUSH LEFT HOLDING THE BAG! June 9, 2003 Dan Dvorak Unlike the other rogue Republican Presidents before him, George W. will be left swinging in the wind by his handlers as he attempts to extricate himself from the lies and deception in which he wrapped himself. He violated every domestic and international law pursuing political and financial gain for himself and his friends through the destruction and invasion of a sovereign nation against the will of the world, including the killing and maiming of thousands of innocent men, women and children in the process. He will soon have to account for his crimes.thepeoplesvoice.org

face="Arial" size="4">Locked Up in Land of the Free June 9, 2003 by Scott Shane The United States has surpassed Russia as the nation with the highest percentage of citizens behind bars. With a record-setting 2 million people locked up in American jails and prisons, the United States has overtaken Russia and has a higher percentage of its citizens behind bars than any other country. Overseas, U.S. imprisonment policy is widely seen as a blot on a society that prides itself on valuing liberty and just went to war to overturn Saddam Hussein's despotic rule in Iraq. "Why, in the land of the free, should 2 million men, women and children be locked up?" asks Andrew Coyle, director of the International Centre for Prison Studies at the University of London and a leading authority on incarceration. The new high of 2,019,234, announced by the Justice Department in April, underscores the extraordinary scale of imprisonment in the United States compared with that in most of the world. Today the United States imprisons at a far greater rate not only than other developed Western nations do, but also than impoverished and authoritarian countries do. commondreams.org

US attorney general defends civil liberties abuses June 9, 2003 By Kate Randall Ashcroft dismisses report on post-911 dragnet US Attorney General John Ashcroft testified last Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee, giving his first public response to an internal Justice Department report that exposed widespread violations of the civil liberties of immigrants detained in the post-September 11 “anti-terror” dragnet. The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General’s report, released June 2, detailed verbal and physical abuse, withholding of counsel, denial of bond, and other violations against the 762 mostly Arab and Muslim men rounded up by the government. Ashcroft treated the report by the watchdog agency of the department he heads with undisguised contempt. “We make no apologies,” he told the congressmen. The attorney general not only defended the police-state methods decried by the inspector general, but called for the government to be granted even more sweeping police powers. He said the reach of the USA Patriot Act—the law passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks that sanctions unprecedented powers to detain, investigate and prosecute terror suspects—should be extended. wsws.org

Bush's War on Endangered Species Going Critical June 9, 2003 By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR The Bush administration has given up on the art of pretense. There are no more illusions about its predatory attitude toward the environment. No more airy talk about how financial incentives and market forces can protect ecosystems. No more soft rhetoric about how the invisible hand of capitalism has a green thumb.Now it's down to brass tacks. The Bush administration is steadily unshackling every restraint on the corporations that seek to plunder what is left of the public domain. counterpunch.org

Fascism Anyone? June 9, 2003 Laurence W. Britt To a secular humanist, these principles seem so logical, so right, so crucial. Yet, there is one archetypal political philosophy that is anathema to almost all of these principles. It is fascism. And fascism’s principles are wafting in the air today, surreptitiously masquerading as something else, challenging everything we stand for. The cliché that people and nations learn from history is not only overused, but also overestimated; often we fail to learn from history, or draw the wrong conclusions. Sadly, historical amnesia is the norm. secularhumanism.org

DEPLETED URANIUM IN BUNKER BOMBS - America's big dirty secret June 9, 2003 by ROBERT JAMES PARSONS The United States loudly and proudly boasted this month of its new bomb currently being used against al-Qaida hold-outs in Afghanistan; it sucks the air from underground installations, suffocating those within. The US has also admitted that it has used depleted uranium weaponry over the last decade against bunkers in Iraq, Kosovo, and now Afghanistan. "The immediate concern for medical professionals and employees of aid organisations remains the threat of extensive depleted uranium (DU) contamination in Afghanistan."  mondediplo.com

Bush's New Senior Death Discount June 9, 2003 By Jim Hightower In case you thought Washington couldn't get one whit weirder, meet John Graham. He's been installed by George W as the Czar of Federal Regulations, and his unstated assignment is to weaken or kill any rule designed to protect your and my health and well-being – if that rule is deemed by big corporations to be too strong, too inconvenient...or worst of all, too effective. Graham is a notorious, right-wing, laissez-faire nutball who has made a career fronting for corporations that want to escape our nation's health, labor, environmental, and other laws. Through a corporate-funded outfit he calls the Harvard Institute of Risk Assessment, he has given raw corporate greed quasi-academic cover by issuing studies claiming that, say, an anti-pollution rule protecting people's health has to be "balanced" against a polluting corporation's need for profit. interventionmag.com

Why Does No One Like Bush? June 9, 2003 By Mark Morford How can the global community so fear and despise us, when we're so honest and good? Those damnable jerks. You'd think they'd be grateful. You'd think they'd applaud and cheer wildly and grovel and offer us their prettiest first-born daughters or at least politely and on bended knee acknowledge our big oily happy capitalist Christian largesse. You'd think all those uppity Muslim nations and even those sophisticated Euro snoots, like "Freedom Fries" France and Germany, would be bowing down to our superior godlike machismo, our noble ability to "liberate" a repressed people and crush a pip-squeak thug Iraqi dictator with our multibillion-dollar military fist, all in the name of oil and, uh, I mean weapons of mass, um, make that strategic power mongering and, uh, oh hell, never mind. sfgate.com

Articles of Impeachment of President George W. Bush June 9, 2003 And Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John David Ashcroft The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. - - ARTICLE II, SECTION 4 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John David Ashcroft have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperial executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts: votetoimpeach.org